Rebooting the Regions: City and Regional Deals in New Zealand

The next few years will be critical for New Zealand’s regions.  Councils are facing massive rate hikes to cover the cost of infrastructure and are already in debt up to their eyeballs.  They are sounding the alarm that they cannot cope without additional Government support.

At the same time, the new Government is promising to lift infrastructure investment, and create a new type of “City Deal” to empower the regions. But what are these City – or more likely – Regional deals? How will they work?  Will they solve the finding crunch?  And how can cities and regions access them?  

The deals must be about regions, not just cities.  Despite political posturing in many rural towns and local authorities, central Government lacks the bandwidth to engage in sub-scale partnerships at the local level.

The practical implications are obvious. Small local authorities must develop common business cases and hunt as a pack with their wider regions. Cities must bring their regional hinterlands with them to get cut-through.  

If regions do not have a unified regional song sheet with everyone signing the same song, they can expect to go to the back of the queue.

Priorities will be set by Cabinet and fast tracked under new resource management laws.  Cabinet will have regard to the economics of regional business cases, to resilience in the face of weather events, and cannot ignore the inevitable need to transition to a low emission economy.

The Regions are back. Empowering local innovation is in, but major infrastructure projects will still be prioritised by Cabinet.